Broken Things
by MissMelysse
Summary: CRUSHverse. AU. "Lore can't have nice things." For as long as he's been alive, Lore's been unstable. From the time he first saw Zoe in Data's memories, he's been a bit obsessed with her. This is a look at why that might be. Oneshot. Data/Zoe off-camera. Lore/Zoe (non-consensual, non-explicit.)


**_Disclaimer: _****_Star Trek: The Next Generation, the_** **U.S.S. Enterprise** ** _, and all the canon characters belong to CBS/Paramount. Anything else is mine. Reviews are better than chocolate; don't be shy._**

 ** _Continuity Note:_** ** _If you haven't read Crush II: Ostinato, this won't make a lot of sense. It's meant to be a follow-up to chapters 1, 17, and 24, specifically. More notes at the end.  
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 ** _Content Warning: It's marked "M" for a reason. Violence, strong language, rape implied but not explicitly shown. _**

* * *

**Broken Things**

 **February 2367**

 **Terlina III**

Lore loved his brother.

He loved that Data's existence meant he wasn't alone in the universe. He loved that Data's emotionless state made him the perfect straight man for every joke. He loved that Data's dedication to duty gave _him_ instant credibility.

The only thing that could make Lore love Data more, would be if his brother were to abandon his precious Starfleet and join him.

Two against the universe.

A match made in a cybernetics lab.

Stealing Data's emotion chip had been a given once the old man had mentioned the damned thing. Maybe it really _wouldn't_ work with his programming; maybe he just wasn't repairable, but if nothing else, it wouldn't be boring.

Besides, Data was just so _good_ – so fucking _good_. Why waste emotions on someone who was unlikely to ever explore them to their fullest?

"I wish to be more human," his brother had told him, years before, after finding his disassembled body in the ruins of Omicron Theta, and putting them back together again like some kind of positronic Humpty Dumpty.

Data put humanity on a pedestal. He saw attaining the understanding of the human condition as the ultimate end-goal, the magic fairy dust that would turn him into a Real Boy.

Lore had put _one_ human on a pedestal, once: Rebecca with the chestnut hair.

She had been his first friend, given him his first kiss, popped his proverbial cherry. The rest of the people in their community on Omicron Theta had first applauded her for being 'inclusive,' then derided her for 'consorting with the artificial life form.'

Lore had loved _her_ , too.

He'd loved her the way the human men (the ones in the romance novels Julianna Soong secretly read in her off-hours) loved the women they eventually married.

He'd confessed his love to Rebecca during one of their afternoon trysts, after he'd kissed every inch of her creamy-white skin, after he'd rolled them so she was on top of him.

She'd insisted that there was no way she could love a machine.

Lore really hadn't _meant_ to grip her neck with that much force, but he also couldn't deny that there had been almost as much pleasure in her dying gasps as there had been when her body bucked and writhed against his in sexual climax.

It was after that that he began to hear the whispers.

Well, not whispers, so much as electronic _pings_ across some of the lower sub-frequencies his auditory processors could perceive. Buzzing urges to _feed me_ and _help me_ that came from somewhere beyond the perception of the humans.

How easy it had been to offer the coordinates of their comfortable little science village!

How he had enjoyed watching the first wave of colonists - Rebecca's precious family among them – turn to ash right in front of him!

He still remembers the look of fear in Julianna's eyes. She'd known – _she'd known_ – that he was responsible for bringing the Crystalline Entity's fiery terror.

Some mother she'd turned out to be. Her face was the last thing he remembered from before the old man deactivated him. Her look of loathing.

The old man, at least, had had the decency to whisper, "I'm sorry," as he pressed Lore's power switch.

Stealing Data's memories hadn't been _planned_ , so much as an opportunity that couldn't be ignored. He hadn't even had to - what was the colloquial term? – 'roofie' him this time. He only had to woo him with false empathy. Only had to court him with tidbits of how emotion would change him. Data never saw the hand that pressed his switch.

How much easier it would be to 'become' Data if he had the contents of his brother's brain! How much more effective could he be if he didn't have to continually concoct cover stories and create false identities?

Security codes, Starfleet protocols – those were useful. But then there were the memories of The Girl.

The Girl also had chestnut hair.

The Girl was Data's friend.

He was pretty sure The Girl had a thing for his brother, and equally sure Data was oblivious to it. But the memories were there, and ripe for the taking – all the music and the hugs and the quiet confidences over tea his brother drank to be polite.

And the bracelet.

Mustn't forget the bracelet.

The string of beads was the proof he needed: The Girl was significant to Data.

How significant? The extra bead he found in the pouch of his brother's uniform jacket spoke volumes.

 **=(L)=**

 **February 2367, later**

 **Starbase 416**

Lore recognized The Girl from the moment he saw her. The shining chestnut hair, the musician's fingers curled around the steaming mug holding the blend of caffeine and sugar she was ingesting. Did she see him? Yes. Good. Too bad Data wasn't with her.

He'd have wagered he could get The Girl to choose him, after all.

He saw her enter the restroom facility.

He waited for her to leave it, separated from her squeaky-clean Starfleet-brat friends.

He made a point of being visible.

"Data?" The Girl was approaching him, seeking her friend.

He forced his features to go blank, found his brother's default salutation: "Greetings, Zoe." He was particularly pleased at the use of her name. It lent credence, didn't it?

"Greetings?" The Girl seemed puzzled. Didn't Data use that word with her? "You haven't said that to me in months…. I must really have managed to annoy you."

Lore stayed in his Data-persona, and protested the accusation of feeling. "But I cannot be annoyed."

The Girl responded with a snarky observation. "Yeah, right, of course you can't." Inwardly, Lore smiled. He liked snark. He _lived_ snark. He could _use_ this. He let her babble something unkind about the establishment they were hovering near.

"Your curiosity will get the better of you one day," he warned. "Your mouth will get you into trouble," he added. He looked at her lips, berry-pink, slight traces of coffee and cinnamon lingering. He wanted to devour those lips.

"Data…?" Her voice, quivering slightly. A little uncertain.

"Zoe…?" Lore matched her tone, let his blank expression resolve into the hint of a leer. "Won't your friends be looking for you?"

The Lemnorian bouncer interrupted before she could answer. "Is the girl with you?" he asked. "She looks kind of young."

Lore let his leer take over his entire face, turned his head slightly so The Girl would see the lecherous smile, the lust in his eyes. "She's legal," he said draping an arm around her shoulders. If he dropped his hand just _so_ , it would rest at the top of her breast. "Barely," he chuckled, "but I like'em that way."

"Oh, my god," The Girl blurted, and in that moment, Lore realized that she'd figured it out. That she knew who he really was. "You're not…" He pulled her closer, using the contact to startle her out of whatever she was going to say. The tip of his finger found her nipple, and she flinched, but finished her sentence with the word, "… kidding."

After that it was easy. Keeping The Girl close to him became a game. What could he 'accidentally' touch? How far could he make her go?

Lore hadn't expected her show of bravado, but something inside him had _approved_ when she'd ordered her martini. Something a little more external had responded to the feel of her body through the layers of her clothing. The Girl was young, but not so young that she didn't have a woman's hips, a woman's responses. In another time and place…

"So, Zoe Harris," he asked, his voice full of syrup and seduction. "How much has my brother told you about his evil twin?"

"He never said you were evil." _Oh, but I am,_ Lore thought. _The things I want to do to you…._ He had a vision of her chestnut hair loose and hanging, tented around her face as he forced his cock into her mouth. He wondered if she'd gag. "Only that I shouldn't entertain the notion of meeting you."

 _So, she's been warned that I'm dangerous. Remember that. It could be useful._

Lore kept her talking, watched her responses, catalogued the way her pulse jumped whenever he led her down a murkier conversational path.

"You thought I was him."

"Wasn't that your intent?"

"Point to you."

"How did you know my name?"

"Uh-uh, sweetheart." Lore bit off the final 't' in the word, and re-appraised his prize. Her question showed that she could connect dots. " _I_ ask the questions," he instructed.

She gave him more fake courage, a shrug that only accented her perky, breasts, and a too-casual response that didn't hide her fear in the slightest: "Had to try."

Lore maintained his contact with The Girl during the entire negotiation with the Fedora-wearing Ferengi. He positioned her on his lap in the single provided chair, and while he talked terms he was also insinuating his fingers beneath her shirt, dipping them inside the waistband of her jeans. _Hot, she's so hot,_ he thought.

The negotiations were over, but he wasn't ready to let her go. He needed time – time to see how deeply his little fish would bite. Time to get away before _she_ had time to scream for help. Time to taste those coffee-stained lips and tease the last drops of her salty drink from her tongue.

Lore led her to his room in the bed-n-head, the most basic of the transient quarters. They weren't _quite_ the by-the-hour rentals of bad holonovels, but they weren't the place _nice girls_ would ever – should ever – be seen.

"What should I do with you?" he asked her. "What should I do with you, Zoe Harris," he repeated. Using her whole name turned him on – no pun intended – in ways he couldn't quite explain. As if naming her was claiming her.

Lore knew what he wanted. He _wanted_ to see her tender skin exposed for his viewing pleasure. He _wanted_ to push himself inside her while he held fistfuls of her chestnut hair. He _wanted_ to make her scream in ecstasy.

He _wanted_ to rip her in two.

He did _not_ want the holy hellfire of Starfleet's forces raining down on him.

Lore had researched The Girl after he'd left the old man's workshop. He knew she was the only daughter of a celebrity musician. Knew her mother served with his brother. Corrupting a princess like that could be so much _fun._

More fun… more fun would be seducing her. He knew she had a reckless streak. She'd followed him to the bar, after all. She hadn't outed him to the bouncer or the Ferengi.

"Your family is too well-known for me to just kill you, and frankly, while I could do with a fuck-buddy, I'd rather not have a little girl who's stuck on my dear brother." His words were chosen to annoy, to bait.

It worked. First, she insisted – though they both knew she was lying through her pearly white teeth – she felt nothing for Saint Data. Then she added the perfect cap: "And second, I'm _not_ a little girl."

 _No, no you're really not._

There _was_ a bed in the room. It would be so easy to push her backwards, straddle her, have his way with her…

The Girl shifted on her feet, nervous movement, but enough to cause her bracelet to make noise. Lore heard the soft clicking of bead against bead, and suddenly he knew. He knew _just_ what to do.

He stood in front of her, held her eyes with his. He ran his hands over her chest, teasing her nipples with his thumbs as he searched for the comm-badge he knew she must have. Plucking it away from the inside of her shirt, he dropped it on the floor and made a show of 'crushing' it with his boot heel.

Lore told her the broken badge would send a signal. It wasn't true, but he enjoyed the second of false hope it gave her. In his softest, most intimate voice, he told her to give Data a message. "Tell him I said, 'Thanks for the memories. I'll be watching.'"

He turned toward the door, listened for the sigh of relief as the portal slid open, emitted a deep-throated chuckle as he palmed the control to make it close again.

He turned back, gathering both her hands – small, but elegant – in one of his. If he squeezed just _so_ her music studies would be over. But he didn't. Instead, he stroked her cheek, her ear, with his free hand. He lowered his mouth to hers and stole a kiss, owning her tongue with his, tasting every bit of her. "You can also tell my brother I had the first taste."

The words were muttered against her berry-pink lips as his caressing hand found the right place to apply pressure and send her into oblivion.

Lore worked quickly: find the transceiver in the mangled pieces of her comm-badge, take an actuator from just above his right elbow. The old man's jeweler's tools came in handy as he constructed the transmitter inside the bead he brought. Slide the bracelet off The Girl's wrist, restring it so his bead is in the center, slide it back on.

He arranged her body on the bed, and only then did he touch her hair. Chestnut strands that threatened to freeze and burn him, both at once.

 _I bet I could convince you to join me_ , he thought. But he didn't wake her. He left The Girl unconscious and called in the emergency alert from another location. His bead would let them find her and they'd never know it wasn't her shattered badge that really did the work.

 **=(L)=**

 **September 2367**

 **Starbase 12**

Another starbase. Another hotel tryst. Lore had long since given up keeping track of the number of women he'd been with, the quick fucks in the lowest places. The unsavory underbelly of the Federation. Scratch the gleaming titanium, crack the sheets of glas-steel and transparent aluminum, and what do you find? The same cash-only, no-questions-asked anonymity that the shadows have sheltered since time began.

No anonymity for the golden guy, though.

Still, in the dark, no one knew he was literally a love machine.

Or at least, as long as his money was good, they didn't care.

He only bedded the ones with chestnut hair. He'd gotten better, over the years, at not killing them unless they really pissed him off.

Mostly, he just kept a twist of their hair as a memento.

Not that he needed mementos.

Trophies, then. Souvenirs.

He'd been watching The Girl all summer. Saw her dalliance with the Nechayev boy fizzle like a spent sparkler. Saw her with the shaggy-haired Vulcanoid for all of a weekend. Piggy-backed onto comm-signals and witnessed every confidence between herself and his brother.

Data. Everything was all about Data.

So, what else was new?

He left a half-Lentarian hooker tied to the bed in her room when the bead told him The Girl had arrived on station. He wouldn't miss the trophy not collected, though. _Her_ hair color had come from a stylist's wand.

Easy enough, after learning her patterns all summer, to find The Girl in a coffee shop. Easier still to drop into the chair opposite her, where he caught the moment of elation when she thought he was Data, and saw it shift into deflated anger when she realized it was him.

The first thing he noticed was the new awareness in her eyes. She wasn't quite as grown as she wanted to seem, but he really couldn't call her The Girl anymore. Still, she gave him the inspiration for her new nickname.

"You want me to be a carrier pigeon?"

He'd had to take a moment to access the term. He'd had to bite back the word, "accessing." It annoyed him - that announcement - when Data did it. It annoyed him _more_ coming from himself. So he hid it. Someday, he might even master the flickering-eyes thing.

 _Pigeon_. He tasted the word. _Oh, pigeon. Ripe for the plucking._

He pushed her onto the bed, straddling her, and his cock had grown hard inside his stolen uniform, seeing her chestnut hair mussed against the bedspread. The old man had given him autonomic function _there_. Most of the time, it was a blessing, but with this girl, his _Pigeon_ , it was a curse, and it took a considerable portion of his processing power to curb the desire to spread her open and pound into her right then.

He was on a mission.

(A mission in the missionary position? Who knew positrons could free-associate that way? Who knew they _couldn't_?)

"Seriously, have you been chugging flitter fuel?" she asked him, trying to roll away from him, and failing miserably.

"Silicone-based lubricant and generic nutritional supplement, if you must know. Plus, fish oil. Helps the memory. Want a taste?" He touched her lips with his own. She was still coffee-stained. His _Pigeon_.

"Lips that drink Sili-Coat lube are _not_ touching mine. You want me to deliver a message, fine, I'll be your courier, but I don't see why you're fixated on me. I'm just a student who happens to know your brother."

"You know my brother… intimately."

"Hardly! He's my tutor. And my friend. And that's all."

"Is it? Are you sure?" He cocked his head slightly, then started speaking in her voice, words the bead recorded for him. "'Technically, Data, _our_ relationship is intimate. It's just not…it's just not sexual.' Need I go on?"

"How did you know about that conversation?"

"Ah-ah-ah. That's for me to know… and my brother to go crazy trying to figure out. Now do you want to deliver my message, or do you want me to start blowing up sectors of this 'base?"

Predictably, she chose the message.

Pity.

The piercing gun penetrated her mouth the way Lore wanted to penetrate the most private part of her body. He pressed the trigger, and smiled when she screamed. He stole another kiss, assaulting her mouth, speaking the words against her lips, just like the first time he'd kissed her. "I had the first taste," he reminded her. "Now I've had the second."

White pain in the form of electronic feedback flooded through him when her booted foot met his groin, and he screamed, and moved away at lightning speed, but when the pain subsided, when he was in his own space, he laughed into the dark cockpit of his ship. "Pigeon's got _game_."

No one heard his words.

No one knew that in the moment Lore began referring to Zoe Harris as 'Pigeon,' he had staked a weird sort of claim on her. She wasn't just The Girl anymore.

From a safe distance, he surveyed the wreckage of the bombed space station, and was relieved to see that the room where the Lentarian prostitute was tied up had survived the damage.

He didn't need a murder rap. Lawsuits were so damned inconvenient.

That's when the whispering returned.

 **=(L)=**

 **February 2368**

 **Melona Colony**

Lore had no idea when the Crystalline Entity had become _Phil_. The name just… suited it. Also, it was shorter – more efficient.

Similarly, he had long since lost track of whether he was leading or following the creature. He and Phil had become fused via subspace. The electronic whispers, the constant begging for nourishment, for completion, never ceased.

It was enough to drive him mad.

Except androids couldn't go mad… could they?

He truly hadn't known that his Pigeon was on the planet, just as he hadn't known Data was on the planet. Starfleet didn't typically advertise where their ships were headed when a mission was routine – odd to think that depositing a couple hundred humans and some gear had become routine, but, whatever – and his brother had found the bead, and killed the signal, months before.

He didn't know what had happened to his message. Oh, he knew Data had found the will, but that was the easy part. It was the rest – all the stuff under the top layer – that truly mattered.

And then there was his little gift. An amuse-bouche of emotion buried under maps and financials and legal red tape. He'd had a hard time choosing between love and hate, but decided, in the end, that to let his brother have a miniscule taste of love, and then rip it away, was crueler than letting him taste hate.

Lore wasn't sure if it was Phil's influence or something broken inside him ( _Both!),_ but cruelty satisfied him in ways that sex never did.

Phil had fed on Melona while Lore watched, but then life signs had returned to the dead world. Unable – unwilling – to trust the scanner on his nearly-derelict ship, the android had beamed to the surface to investigate and come face to face – well, face to head-of-chestnut-hair - with The Girl.

Pigeon – _his_ Pigeon – was all grown up.

And she was still wearing those fucking boots.

Grabbing her hadn't been planned. He'd merely done what he always did: see an opportunity and take it.

Kissing her had been almost a ritual. It was what they _did_. He kissed her, she snarked at him. He knew of worse relationships. This one just needed time, right? _Right?_

He'd sent her to take the conn, but she'd frozen, staring at the image of Phil on the viewer, and then turning to him with a face full of horror and disgust.

"You led it, didn't you? You led that thing –"

" _Phil_ –"

" _Phil_ , then. Whatever. You led it to Melona. You _wanted_ those people to die."

He shrugged. "Phil was hungry. Fucking with my brother and his precious Starfleet - that was just a bonus. I couldn't grab him; you, _little girl_ , are my consolation prize." His pause, after that, was just long enough for her pulse to increase, for her to become anxious about what he might say next, and then he admitted, almost casually, "But no, I didn't want them to die." He waited for her face to soften, for her to give him a hint that she might not find him completely irredeemable, and then he laughed shortly, and added, his tone dark and bitter, "Didn't particularly care if they lived, either."

"Data was there, you know. On the planet. You might have killed him, too." Her words are soft. She makes him want to hear her say other things. Nicer things.

But then the meaning of what she said finally reached him, and fear – true fear – jolted through him. His brother? Almost lost? That can't be. "You're lying."

"Why would I bother lying to a fuck-bot like _you_?" His eyes widened, staring at her, and for just a moment his Pigeon became that other chestnut-haired girl, his Rebecca who couldn't love a machine.

Of course, he recovered himself almost immediately. Rebecca was long dead and The Girl was right there in front of him. "Mind your tongue, Pigeon. Or have you forgotten my warning? That mouth of yours will get you into serious trouble someday."

But his Pigeon wasn't a stupid cow like Rebecca was. She was smart, sassy, matching him snark for snark. She learned which buttons _(Mustn't press the button.)_ to push, just as he had. She spoke again, and her voice was no longer even a little bit of the child-voice it was the first time they met. It was all woman, low, and slow, and full of a kind of power he hadn't known a human could even possess, "You didn't know that, did you? You almost killed your own brother – your only family – and you didn't even know."

"Stop it."

He was talking to Phil. But Phil kept oscillating, responding to whatever sub-harmonic song it was experiencing out in space.

"Stop it!" That was for Pigeon.

But she didn't stop. She kept going, "Is that what you want, Lore? Do you want Data's death on your hands?"

He lashed out at her with words. "I don't want him dead, you stupid girl. I want him with me." But then he, too, softened his tone, put his own power into his voice. "He's my brother. He belongs with me, not serving fragile, petty human beings. Not emulating creatures who'll never truly accept him." There's a beat and then Lore admits, "I love him."

"Right, because everyone expresses their love with the attempted murder of a colony of people, and the kidnapping of their brother's girlfriend."

At the word 'girlfriend,' something inside him snapped.

Tossing her across the deck shouldn't have felt so _good_.

It wasn't until Phil devoured the cargo ship, the _Kallisko_ , that things really began to shift, to change. First there was the energy, the sub-harmonic blast from the crystalline entity's feeding. The subspace pulse that filled him with bliss, made him as giddy as any orgasm ever had, multiplied by a number approaching infinity.

Bliss and desire.

When Pigeon refused to give up her comm-badge, he _had_ to crush her wrist. The cracking of the bones made him smile, but it was the way she cried and begged for him not to break the other one that really got to him.

"Little pigeons have such delicate bones," he whispered, his face almost touching hers. "That was one wrist. Shall I do the other?"

"Please don't," she cried, and he smiled, and wiped the tears from her wet cheeks.

"Well, since you asked so nicely…." Her tears were so salty-sweet when he sucked them from his thumb. Then he asked her, "So, you and my brother?" After she confirmed it, he chuckled and made a joke: "Once you go 'droid you're spoiled for 'noid, and you should know Pigeon. You've tasted us both."

That was when he realized she wasn't afraid of him anymore, that she pitied him. What did she see when she looked at him? Poor, broken, Lore whose only friend is a giant killer snowflake? Maybe she wasn't wrong.

"You pity me," he accused, and she stared him down.

" _You_ have what Data's always wanted, not just emotion, but actual memories of your 'childhood' with the Soongs. _You_ have a brother who craves the same things you do: connection, belonging, acceptance, family. And what do you do? You _kill_ everyone you've ever known. You _murder_ your own father. You do everything possible to drive Data away from you. You are all alone."

Her words sliced through him like a laser scalpel, but she _wasn't_ wrong, after all.

Actually, she was surprisingly insightful.

 _Bitch._

 _Pigeon._

He _hated_ that she wasn't wrong. He wanted to argue with her. Wanted to keep her talking, even as she listed everything that was wrong with him. It had been so long since anyone had actually _talked_ to him. Most of his conversations were negotiations – for money, for sex, for fuel. He was so lonely and Phil was constantly screaming inside his head.

 _Data should be here. The Sons of Soong should be together._

Lore couldn't be hungry, but through Phil he knew what it as to never be sated.

"Pigeon's going to get plucked. Pigeon's going to get pounded." He could hear himself saying the words, see himself forcing The Girl down onto the cold deck, see her chestnut hair coming loose from the ponytail she'd had it in for days, but the harmonics kept shifting and the electronic feedback was whiting out his relays and he just _wanted_ her so much.

She was screaming, and he was lost in white noise. Gray noise. Phil was pulsing on the viewer, and his auditory processors were jumping frequencies, and inside his head was sound and static, and no clear thoughts could form.

When the snowflake shattered, something inside Lore shattered, also.

Horror and grief flooded through him. "Pretty bird," he said to her, but it wasn't really her. It was Rebecca, and the tied-down fake-haired prostitute, and the waitress at the starbase canteen, and all the others, too. He'd gone too far. His pretty pigeon was a wounded bird.

"Poor, broken, Pigeon." Looking down, he saw bruised flesh and wild hair. "Lore can't have nice things," he said, but what he meant was _I'm sorry._

He was on a sort of autopilot, limited to basic survival mode, when he kicked her communicator back to where she could reach it.

He was desperate to be _anywhere_ but in front of the woman he'd broken, when he flipped up his thumbnail and activated the long-range transporter. He wondered how long it would take until his brother came after him.

Data would _have_ to kill him now.

"Lore can't have nice things."

 **=(L)=**

 **April/May, 2368**

 **Location Unknown**

He had been adrift in space for six weeks before the Borg pod picked him up. He wasn't entirely certain who he was. Sometimes he had visions of a snowflake, and sometimes he remembered another being as pale-gold as himself lying on the floor with his circuitry showing, and other times he remembered creamy-white flesh – human flesh – and chestnut hair, and brown eyes that accused and pitied and glared and cried.

He'd vaguely recalled that the Borg were supposed to be some interstellar menace, but the creatures he found were more broken than he was, especially after their nano-probes had infested his systems and rebuilt as much as they could.

His brain still misfired sometimes.

But at least he still _had_ a brain.

The Borg who had rescued him from the depths of space were disconnected from their hive mind, lost souls who needed a leader as much as he needed a family.

"Lore can't have nice things," he murmured to himself as he met one after another of the gray-skinned creatures, some of which may have been human once, and some of which definitely had _not_. "Lore is broken, and he breaks everything around him."

"Are you the One?" each of them asked. Each voice a bit more plaintive, a bit more eager. They were fascinated by his wholly artificial, wholly autonomous existence.

He kept telling them he was not, that he was just another broken thing in a vast collection of them.

Two weeks later, he felt a jolt deep in the communication center of his brain. It took time to identify the signal – his processing power was not yet at full strength – but once he realized what it was, a slow smile spread across his face.

A dangerous smile.

"I love you, brother," he whispered into the darkness of space. He had known Data would stick the chip in his head, eventually. "You are so predictable," he told his absent twin.

When the next Borg came to meet him, he did something new.

"I am Crosus," the bulky male told him.

"I am Lore," he responded, owning his name for the first time since… well, in a while. It wasn't worth the processing power to calculate it.

"Are you the One?"

 _Lore breaks his toys. Poor broken Pigeon. Lore can't have nice things._

 _But he could lead a race of broken things. _

"Yes," he said, a smug grin taking over his face. "Yes, I am."

* * *

 **Notes:** The first section is inspired by the episode "Brothers" but doesn't stick to what was on-camera, though it doesn't contradict it either. The second section is Lore's side of chapter 44 (Zoe-Lore) of _Crush_. The third section is Lore's side of chapter 1 (Anvil) of _Crush II: Ostinato_ , but it refers to the entire body of _Hello From Earth…._ I invented Lentarians. The fourth section is Lore's side of chapter 17 (Fractured) of _Crush II: Ostinato_ , and the final section takes place after chapter 24 (Crescendo) of the same story, and leads into "Descent, Part I." Dialogue may not be an exact match to corresponding chapters.

Special thanks to **koram852** for her encouragement when I mentioned I was flirting with this idea, and to **RED** who doesn't read my stuff any more but asked for a Lore POV _months_ ago.


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